The Passion of Ayn Rand
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.14 You Save: $4.84 (48%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.09 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Passion of Ayn Rand
Movie Review: Helen Mirren is Excellent as Ayn Rand -- But What Were Her Ideas?
Summary: 3 Stars
Helen Mirren -- as usual -- gives an excellent performance as Ayn Rand, and she's the main reason to see this film. The rest of the cast is fine; the script -- which should have been called "The Panic Attacks of Barbara Branden" or "The Affairs of Nathaniel Branden" -- assumes the viewer already knows everything about Ayn Rand's fiction and philosophy. This is a big problem. For example, near the beginning the Brandens are shown meeting Ayn Rand and her husband at their home in California. This brief scene then cuts to the young couple driving away, filled with excitement about the hours they've just spent talking with their idol, Ayn Rand. Unfortunately the viewer isn't given a clue as to what their all-night conversation was about.
This film would've been far more interesting if the focus had been more on Rand and her ideas, not mainly on the sex between her and Nathaniel Branden, or on Barbara's fainting spells. There should have been at least two or three scenes between Rand and the Brandens, or with Rand giving speeches or interviews, that would serve to clarify what her ideas were and why they attracted and influenced so many people in the 1950s and 60s. (There is one brief exchange of dialogue at an Objectivist lecture where Rand answers a question about her core beliefs by stating: "Reason. Individualism. Capitalism.", but that's all we get to hear, folks.) Otherwise the film makes it difficult to understand why Rand became such a magnetic cult-figure and was able to command such devotion from her friends and followers.
Once again: see it for Mirren's performance, but try to imagine a better script.
Movie Review: Great Woman, So-So Movie
Summary: 3 Stars
I like to think I'm qualified to "objectively" review this film. I am a disciple of Rand who really loved the Barbara Branden book. I believe what Branden wrote about Rand, because her portrait of Ayn is complete and consistent. Rand's passion for ideas made her testy with stupid people and willing to break social norms such as those that govern how married people behave. Those objectivists who wish to dismiss this book and film as slander ought to look in the mirror. You are just as stubborn and dogmatic as she.Which isn't to say she isn't the greatest mind of the 20th century, because she is. Her ideas changed my life. It's the absense of any real discussion of those ideas that sinks this movie. There's are just enough bits of objectivist rhetoric to make Rand sound the leader of a bizarre cult. Only the final scene where she speaks to a group of her disciples and critics does her justice. She sparkles with wit and antagonism while confidently defending every attack on her unique philosophy.
Not surprisingly this is the image I took away from Branden's original book which has several hundred pages to flesh out the Rand's complete and at times flawed character.
Without much philosophy to lean on for support, this movie seems pretty unbelievable. The acting is great of course, its a dream cast. A better script and a director less attracted to the dirt of the story could have made this truly special, an emotionally powerful film about ideas.
Chris Spaeth
Movie Review: Smear job? I found it a (deserving) lionization.
Summary: 3 Stars
The Passion of Ayn Rand (Christopher Menaul, 1999)
At the time filming for The Passion of Ayn Rand wrapped, I think Eric Stoltz was, perhaps, the luckiest man in the world. He had slept with (or at least simulated sex with) Helen Mirren, Julie Delpy, and Sybil Temchen in the course of making this film. Ah, the sacrifices our finest stars make to bring us top-quality entertainment!
Stoltz plays Nathaniel Branden, a protege of Rand's (Mirren) with whom she has an affair, much to the consternation of her husband Frank (Peter Fonda) and his wife Barbara (Delpy). The movie is based on the memoirs of Barbara Branden. Despite that, however, the film doesn't portray any of its principals as evil; it just shows us the events and allows us to judge for ourselves. Sure, there are overtones that strain credulity (the implication is that Rand needed the affair with Branden in order to finish Atlas Shrugged, and because of that, this is as much a film about the writing of that book as it is anything else), but there's no demonizing of either Rand or Branden. That, more than anything, is what saves this movie. It helps that the plot's interesting and the actors are well-suited to it (Delpy and Stoltz, especially, are always a fine pairing), but it is the treatment of the material that separates this from the pack. A very good movie. *** ½
Movie Review: The nude body of Helen Mirren
Summary: 3 Stars
I agree with the negative critics of this movie. And no, I'm not a follower of that late, cultish wacko Ayn Rand. I just don't think the movie is good enough.
It's not a *bad* movie either, but to people new to Rand and her movement, it comes across as relatively incomprehensible. You don't get a real feel for her ideas, her novels, or her background. Perhaps I feel this way because I live in Sweden, where Rand is almost unknown (even I was initially confused by the movie, and I know more about her than the average Svensson).
Maybe Americans, who know some of the background, can look differently at "The Passion of Ayn Rand"? Of course, the actors are brilliant, but that's another show.
Personally, I call the movie "The nude body of Helen Mirren". LOL! The sex is very explicit. Apparently, Barbara Brandon (who wrote the book the movie is based on) was somewhat disappointed by the sheer number of sex scenes. But I guess it's difficult to make a movie about Rand without a lot of sex, since her love life was notoriously messy, and also affected the leadership of her movement. Prudish viewers, you have been warned.
All things considered, I give this movie three stars. It deserves more in terms of acting, but overall, I don't think "The Passion of Ayn Rand" is the best production around.
Movie Review: Wonderful production, excellent casting, bad script, sad to say
Summary: 3 Stars
Barbara Branden's book is a clear-eyed view into the turbulent times when Ayn Rand lead the Objectivist Movement. Rand, a philosopher and novelist, had a circle of disciples around her, drawn by her magnetic and forceful personality as well as her bold philosophy that was antagonistic to liberals and conservatives alike.
Despite the fundamental tenet that logic should determine one's emotions, the Objectivist movement was torn apart by the emotional fallout from an affair between Rand and her intellectual heir at that time, Nathaniel Branden. Barbara, his wife, wrote of these events in The Passion of Ayn Rand.
Alas, this nicely produced movie lacks a script and relies on the assumption that the viewer will know the events and philosophy and fill in the blanks. That was a wrong assumption. A good script, showing Rand's dream of the heroic man and her inability to reconcile that with reality, plus her denial of facts that twisted her emotions, would have saved this film and given it coherent meaning. Instead, there was far too much Victim-Barbara (which is not how Barbara Branden portrayed herself in her book) and too little of what made Rand and her philosophy alluring to so many. The only thing they got right in Rand's portrayal was her quick wit and rapier repartee when questioned about her ideas.